What Makes 'Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse' Different From Other Animations?

Comic books have a certain storyboarding process before they go into publishing. This process consists of delivering the narrative in the right way, both through visual and written storytelling. Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse is different from what most of the animation industry has been providing the audience for the longest time because it captures the comic book texture, stylized sequences, and other unique visual traits. 

The photo(sur)realistic style that has been a mastery of the animation world is partly left behind with Miles and his story. The animation style and the conscious artistic choices when it comes to textured scenes, simplified backgrounds, and visible brush strokes have been changing for the better, making way for inclusivity and artistic creative liberty. This results from a diverted and more authentic approach to the rendering process while making films. Render engines are mostly based on the real-life physics of light, shadow, and reflection to imitate realistic visuals. So, these realistic-looking movies sold better, and every other movie that came after looked exactly like the one before, to sell even better, declining the desire of animation studios for possible different and stylized approaches. Then, in 2018, Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse was released. It had a fresh breath of air with simplified graphic bursts that mimicked comic book pages and panels. So, Miles’ Spider-Man movie was based on non-photorealistic rendering, concluding in stylized scenes. In a traditionally animated movie, backgrounds should be out of focus, in this movie, however, they look like they were physically printed since the colors split and provide a prism-like look. The movie also approaches Light and shadow from a more radical perspective. Light or a strong light source reveals halftone dots, while shadows create traditional hand-drawn hatching marks. 

In most of the action scenes, traditional 2D motion techniques are used to convey the mood in which Miles’ is. The 2D cutaways, ‘’wipes’’ and ‘’smears’’ or the linework that appear on the screen in tandem with the characters’ actions, are manifestations of the action lines that would be hand-drawn in a given comic book. Some dramatic scenes only have line work and one color to further emphasize the comic book feeling and get the emotion right, as the screenshot below demonstrates. Tools previously abused in the animation world, such as motion blur and depth of field, are not utilized. The traditional animation frame rate is 24 fps per animation, meaning animators take or draw two photos for each piece of movement. While in Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse plays at 24 frames per second, the characters are animated at 12 frames per second. This conscious animation choice highlights the 2D look and feel of the movie and provides it with its renowned style. The movie also stayed true to most of the concept art drawn before the animation process. The whole movie is highly stylized and compounded with textures such as hatching, halftones, motifs, and linework. Therefore, the scenes look like they are printed in ink. This quality provides the frames with an illustration-like feel.

While working on the movie, animators aimed to be expressive and impactful with the scenes so that the movie would be packed with pleasing visuals and great storytelling. As the reward of this risk-taking and trend-setting attribute, the movie became the highest-grossing film by Sony Pictures Animation only 2 months after its release date. Spider-Verse redefined and repositioned the previously overused methods of storytelling and animation as it provided the audience with amazing worldbuilding, dynamic characters, a well-thought-out origin story, and a new and refined style of animation. This is the story of those who take a leap of faith.